A Primer on the Micro Bag Trend

The style was nascent in 2016, seen on the spring runways at Valentino (in a form so miniature they might be deemed overamped lockets), Chloé (as saddle bags in miniature), and Dolce & Gabbana (which went so far as to put the baby in baby grand piano...bag). It then entrenched itself in the celeb zeitgeist in 2017, with all of the usual suspects seen carrying: Vogue declared the Jacquemus bag Rihanna was seen toting “dinky”; Gigi Hadid carted around a handbag so small it was effectively a coin purse. Still, the trend prevailed—though its sudden ubiquity begged the question: When is a bag really a bag and when does it just look like one? Does a bag need to fulfill its intended function to truly earn the title ”bag”? Or is “bag” just another shape, like a circle or a square, but with handles?

I started pondering these Very Important Questions when I purchased a new handbag—Telfar's mini shopper, to be precise—last week, without first checking the dimensions. (Who would've thought that a thing to do? Numbers just don’t register inside my brain like they used to, anyway.) When it arrived in the mail, I was struck by how truly diminutive it was: It stood just five inches high, and was barely as wide as my iPhone 6 Plus. The brand declares it to be suitable “for the party and the after-party too”—as long as all you need for one is presumably the same as what you need for the other: nothing. I wound up exchanging it for the next size up.

I’m not against seemingly impractical handbags, by any standards: When I finally got my hands on one of Cult Gaia’s ubiquitous Ark handbags last summer (not particularly tiny, but not particularly functional, either), I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was supposed to go in it. Of course, that doesn’t stop it from serving its most authentic function, which is to look good and be Instagrammable.

This most recent shopping mishap, though, felt like something of a wake-up call: I actually have needs—and shouldn’t my wardrobe choices reflect that?

But as I waited for the return, I came to see the validity of the kind of handbag that holds one lipstick and a mascara (maybe keys, on a good day)—those "dinky" tiny bags, if you will. They force you to cut the crap, literally. It’s efficiency made fashion. (Plus, I’m not about keeping things in my pockets—I like my those for putting my hands in; they provide warmth and let me ease into a more coquettish silhouette, all the better for being lonely in a hot and imposing way.)

What’s more, there’s the primal appeal of seeing something made miniature that was once human-size.... So while some are practically satirical in their proportions, micro bags aren’t really about faculty at all. And is there anything really wrong with that?

Micro bags are an easy (and generally more affordable) way to personalize an outfit, something meant to make a statement or tie a look together. At the end of the day, it’s about committing to an aesthetic—so, while I may have upgraded the one, that doesn’t mean there won’t be others just like it, when the mood strikes me and I feel like setting my baby bag on the brunch table like, “Hi, I’m that person.”

As Telfar said, these bags are for the party and the after-party, and what happens in between is just less...cute.